


morgan stark's murder class

by tempestaurora



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Everybody Lives, Fix It, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Morgan-centric, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Teen for language, Tony has a prosthetic arm now, baby's first fight club, supposed to be a crack fic but actually turned out super soft, very mild depictions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 22:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20415631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestaurora/pseuds/tempestaurora
Summary: Sam frowned. “What the hell are you teaching her, dude?”“Life lessons,” Bucky replied simply.“He’s teaching me how to maim people!” Morgan cried.Sam choked. “Bucky?”“Well, I’m not gonna teach her to kill a person, am I?”She frowned up at him. “You promised you would.”“Shh,” he whispered. “Not in front of the narc.”OR Post-Snap, Morgan runs a budget fight club at school and Bucky is recruited to teach her how to defend herself. He also petitions to feature on the now-cancelled game show "Wipeout", because he has nothing else to do with his time





	morgan stark's murder class

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ciaconnaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ciaconnaa/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Уроки членовредительства для Морган Старк](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21681892) by [Liraira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liraira/pseuds/Liraira)

> alright. [here's](https://scarletxwinter.tumblr.com/post/187262050834/bucky-okay-morgan-there-are-206-bones-in-the) the post i based this fic off, from the lovely scarletxwinter (thank u for letting me write it) - and it was TOTALLY SUPPOSED to be super funny. like, that was the idea. funny fic where bucky teaches morgan how to kill a man. but as in the first beginnings i wrote, i got super into bucky feels and couldn't resist and then it just... turned soft. without my permission.
> 
> so here's a soft fic with funny moments and bucky barnes relearning some humanity and love by teaching a small child how to kill her enemies. nebula, natasha and peter feature.
> 
> also, there are many soft, funny scenes in this fic that i would DIE to have someone draw... so if you're so inclined........ hmu
> 
> gifted to ciaconnaa.... because i love her. no other reason. she deserves it ok

Daddy blinked at Principle Donkeybutt. Morgan knew Principle Donkeybutt’s actual name was Donkenbud, but Daddy had once called him Donkeybutt and Morgan had told Jessie about it in the playground, and now _everyone _called him Donkeybutt.

Anyway, Daddy was sighing. “You’re trying to tell me my daughter, my _six-year-old daughter, _the sweetest child on the face of the planet, _this girl right here, _started a playground fight club?”

Donkeybutt nodded. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Mr Stark. Morgan’s incredibly bright—” Daddy scoffed, “—and she’s a social leader in her grade. But she can’t be using all that power for fight clubs—”

“It wasn’t a fight club,” Morgan interrupted, swinging her legs on the chair that was far too big for her. Donkeybutt’s office only had big chairs for adults, like Mommy and Daddy, on either side of her. “It was a battle society.”

“A battle society,” Donkeybutt repeated.

Morgan nodded, looking up at Mommy. “A battle society and a fight club are two different things.”

“Sweetie—”

“You can’t talk about a fight club, but you _can _talk about a battle society. And I wanted people to know about it so they’d come and… battle.”

“Sweetie,” Mommy tried again, and this time Morgan stayed quiet. “You can’t have a battle society, either.”

“Why not? Daddy told me to join a club.”

“I was referring to art club or—soccer. Not _beating up kids in the playground._”

Morgan frowned. “No one said anything about beating each other up. When someone’s on the ground you stop.”

All three adults sighed that weary kind of sigh, then the meeting rolled on, and battle society was officially banned from Hurst Green Elementary.

*

Uncle Steve was clearly trying to stop himself from smiling. Morgan knew that look. She knew it because he always did it when something was funny but everyone in the room was being serious, and he wanted to look serious, too. Uncle Bucky – Uncle Steve’s best friend in the whole wide world, didn’t bother hiding it. He grinned outright, kicking his feet up on the sofa and sending her a wink when he caught her watching.

“Stop encouraging her, Terminator,” Daddy told him, shaking his head. “She’s in trouble.”

“Alex Andrews started it,” Morgan insisted for the third time that day. “He pulled my hair, remember?”

“Yeah, and you punched him for it. We already had the school meeting for that one, kid,” Daddy replied. “That doesn’t mean you create a fight club—”

“Battle society,” Bucky interrupted, earning Daddy’s death glare and Morgan’s smile.

“—to get back at him. Donkeybu—Donkenbud said Alex had a black eye and a broken nose from your _battle society._”

Morgan pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. “Shouldn’t have pulled my hair, then.”

Bucky snorted, Steve lost the fight against smiling, and Daddy sighed so heavily Morgan thought he might deflate entirely. Across the room, Mommy rubbed a hand over her face.

“Morgan, sweetie. Why don’t you go up to your room? We’ll talk about this later.”

Morgan shrugged and jumped off the end of the sofa, Bucky immediately stretching his legs out into her space. All her toys were in her room, anyway.

*

If Aunt Natasha taught Morgan one thing, it was how to spy without being caught. At least, she _thought _she knew how to do it – but the way Bucky had switched up how he was sitting, so he had a better view of the staircase she was crouched at the top of, peering through the spaces in the banister, had her thinking otherwise.

“Do you think it’s inherited?” Daddy asked, unaware she was listening. “The need to get into fights?”

Bucky snorted. “If it is then Steve’s future kids better have an ambulance on speed dial.”

Steve threw a cushion at Bucky, before saying, “I don’t think so. She got picked on by a kid and she just… elaborately got him back for it, right?”

“Yeah, but that’s like, super villain level planning,” Daddy replied. “God, I’m _not_ raising a super villain.”

Morgan couldn’t see Mommy, but she said, “Tony, maybe she just needs some other outlets. You know, non-violent ones.”

“Or maybe,” Bucky suggested, eyes jumping to Morgan’s hiding place and away again, “she just needs to be taught _how_ to throw a punch, how to be violent in a productive way.”

“No,” Daddy said. “She _doesn’t—_”

“Hear me out—”

“I will not.”

Bucky huffed and Daddy shot him a glare. Daddy glared at Bucky a lot, even though Daddy also built him and Steve a cabin on the same lake they lived at, with lots of spare bedrooms for all their friends to stay in. Daddy glared at Bucky a lot, even though Bucky and Steve came round for dinner at least once a week. Daddy glared at Bucky a lot, even though they both had matching metal arms and sometimes talked out on the porch well into the night.

“If she’s throwing punches now, she’ll probably throw a few more later,” Uncle Bucky said slowly, and Daddy didn’t interrupt, even though he said he didn’t want to listen to it. “If she doesn’t know how to throw a punch properly, she might end up breaking her hand next time. And if she knows how much she can hurt someone with her fists, she might even be averse to doing it next time.”

Morgan didn’t know what the word _averse_ meant, but she was very interested in what he was saying.

“And I suppose you think _you_ should teach her?” Daddy asked.

Bucky shrugged. “Steve’s probably morally opposed to teaching children how to fight, and neither of you are going to do it, so—”

“This is a bad idea,” Daddy said.

“I’m not sure,” Mommy replied, so quietly Morgan had to strain to hear her. “Maybe it’ll be good for her to learn. And, well, no offence but James has a lot of free time—”

“None taken. I’m an ex-assassin with, like, four friends and I spend most of my time watching old _Wipeout_ re-runs.”

“You’d do great on that show,” Daddy said absently.

“That’s what I said!” Bucky agreed, sitting up. He glanced subtly up at Morgan’s spot at the top of the stairs before launching into the new conversation, and Morgan crept back from the stairs, careful to keep her feet close to the walls to avoid the floor boards squeaking.

_Interesting, _she thought, before heading back to her room.

*

Morgan had been suspended until Monday for being the mastermind behind the battle society, so it was the next day as Mommy got ready to head into the city for work that Daddy announced Morgan was going to learn a little self-defence.

“Not to encourage you to keep hitting people,” he added pointedly, “but so if you’re ever in a situation where you don’t feel safe, you can use it—though, I hasten to add, that if you’re in an unsafe situation, you have your panic button, and either Happy or Mommy or me, or even one of the other Avengers will probably be around and they’ll help you out anyway they can…” He went on and on and on and Morgan turned her attention to her toast and listened carefully for the crunch when she bit into it.

After Mommy had gone, she and Daddy walked across to the other cabin, less than a quarter of the lake away. On the way, they fed Gerald, their alpaca, and checked on Mommy’s garden, and then they were at the front steps of Steve’s place, Daddy using the Captain America shield door knocker to get their attention.

Steve smiled wide when he saw them, and led the two of them downstairs, where their gym was. It was a big room with bright white lights; all the equipment pushed to the walls, including heavy duty punching bags piled up in the corner.

Morgan always liked Steve and Bucky’s house, because the photos on the walls were grainy and grey, and there was an old fashioned record player on the side table, that Steve had once played old fashioned music on when it was past her bedtime and she was sleeping in their spare room, and he’d taught her to dance while Bucky watched on, laughing, because apparently Steve was not the dancer of the two. It was always warm and comfortable just like her own house, but instead of a workshop in the garage, there was a car and two motorbikes and a photo on a shelf of Bucky with only one arm, surrounded by a group of dark-skinned children by another lake entirely.

The lesson didn’t last too long, and Daddy was only there for the first ten minutes, until his worrying and constant interjections made Bucky huff for maybe the hundredth time, and Steve took Daddy away for a calming walk.

After she’d learnt how to make a good fist (thumb out, fist straight, don’t bend at the wrist), and the best places in the body to hit if she’s being grabbed (throat, groin, stamp on their foot as hard as possible) and the miracle of elbows (hard, pointy, a girl’s best weapon), Bucky sat in front of her on the mat, crossing his legs.

“So,” he said, and she mimicked his pose, “battle society.”

She nodded once.

“You’ve got a few bruises from it.”

The bruises she gained were small and purple, a few of them already turning green and yellow. They were on her arms, mainly, and there was one on her knee where Marisa Garland had pushed her over in a fight and her knee had struck the ground.

Bucky pulled a face when she didn’t respond, just peered at the colours on her arms with a shrug. He looked like he was making up his mind, deciding things that she couldn’t hope to guess.

“Did you… _enjoy_ battle society?”

Morgan nodded, smiling. “Oh, yeah! There were loads of us and we all took turns trying to fight. Some of my friends didn’t like it so much but it was fun, and I didn’t get hurt _really_, and Alex Andrews got what was coming, and—”

“Did you win?”

Her smile widened into a grin. “I’m the battle society _champion._”

“Uh huh…” There was a smile on Bucky’s face; one she didn’t know so well, but was very interested in. In fact, she was very interested in Bucky Barnes altogether. He had a metal arm, for starters, that could pick her up with no strain at all. He was a hundred years old, though he didn’t look a day over thirty. _And _he was one of those people that died and came back to life, but it didn’t seem like it even bothered him. “Your parents agreed to let me teach you the basics, but, if you _enjoy _it…”

Her eyes widened and she leaned forward, interested. “Are you going to teach me how to kill a man?”

Bucky let out a sudden bark of laughter, shaking his head. “No dice, kiddo. Maybe next week. Today, though… Do you know how many bones are in the human body?”

“206.”

“That’s right.” He leaned forward like she had. “Would you like to learn _230_ ways to dislocate them?”

Oh _yes, _yes she very much would.

*

Morgan went to Steve and Bucky’s house three times a week, and after the third time Daddy just let her go and didn’t stick around to worry and fret and be eventually led away by Steve. She figured, on some level, that Bucky was teaching her very advanced things that maybe her Daddy wouldn’t _want_ her to know, but she was a quick learner and she was _good _at it, for, you know, a six-year-old.

“That’s it,” Bucky said, standing over her. She twisted her arm out of his grip slowly, remembering the steps he’d taught her. “Go again.” This time she did it faster, and her arm jumped out of his grasp. “Nice one, kid. Now, where do you aim your pointy little elbows?”

She paused for a moment. “Anywhere I can?”

“Best places to hit.”

“Back of the knees, eyes, groin, stamp on your foot.”

He held out his metal hand and she jumped to high-five it.

“What the _hell_ are you teaching her, dude?” a voice asked, and Morgan span to look at the door, where Sam stood, leaned against it. Sam Wilson usually had massive metal wings, and Morgan had broken the right one off her action figure in The Alien Battle of February, and Mommy had stuck it back on with superglue before the real Falcon could ever see. Morgan liked Sam, though he was often in the city, because he said “the sticks give him hives”.

“Life lessons,” Bucky replied simply.

“He’s teaching me how to maim people!” Morgan cried.

Sam choked. “_Bucky?_”

“Well, I’m not gonna teach her to _kill _a person, am I?”

She frowned up at him. “You promised you would.”

“Shh,” he whispered. “Not in front of the narc.” He looked up at Sam. “Her parents said I could teach her self-defence, don’t worry about it.”

Still, he looked concerned. “Are you sure this is how you do it?”

Bucky blinked at him. “Do you want me to use _puppets? _I could get some if you want. Morg, do you prefer Kermit or Cookie Monster?”

“I like Miss Piggy.”

“Well I can’t _do_ Miss Piggy’s voice. You’ll just end up with a Kermit-sounding Miss Piggy. Do you _want_ to learn how to fight from a Kermit-sounding Miss Piggy?”

Morgan frowned. “Can I learn to knit from a Kermit-sounding Miss Piggy?”

Bucky paused. “Sure thing. Another day.” He looked back to Sam. “Will that be all?”

Sam hummed for a moment, looking only a little amused, before shaking his head and turning to go back upstairs. “Make sure she stretches,” he called behind him. “She can join us for yoga tomorrow morning if she wants.”

*

Yoga, it turned out, was lots of quiet stretching on thin, squishy mats in front of the lake with Sam, Bucky and Mommy. It was also _super _early in the morning, but she liked how the lake looked at sunrise, and how all the adults were quieter than she’d ever seen them.

*

About a month after starting her lessons (which Daddy thought didn’t need to go on so long, but Morgan said she _really really super liked_ learning how to kick with Bucky, so he let her keep going), Natasha arrived at the cabin.

Morgan hadn’t known she was there; she must’ve just slipped in some time during the night and taken one of the spare rooms for herself. But when Bucky met Morgan half way between their houses on the lake, Natasha was standing with him. She caught Morgan when she jumped into Natasha’s arms, and span her around once before depositing her on the ground.

“You don’t greet me like that,” Bucky muttered.

“I see you every day!”

“Still, I’d like some appreciation, you know.”

Morgan rolled her eyes and hugged Bucky’s leg until he smiled, reaching down to pick her up with his metal arm so he could carry her back to the cabin.

“So,” Nat said as they walked, “talk me through the lesson plan. What has she learned?”

“Breaking bones and the quickest way to a man’s heart,” Bucky replied easily.

Natasha cocked an eyebrow, looking to Morgan. “Which is?”

“Through the ribs,” Morgan answered. Both Bucky and Natasha smiled proudly for her effort, which made her stomach feel warm like when Daddy put her A+ tests up on the fridge or when Mommy hung her pictures on the wall.

“Anything else?”

“Bucky says I can kick really hard—”

“She got me in the crotch more than once—”

“—and he taught me how to break out of zip ties. Oh! And how to dislocate all the bones!”

“_All _the bones?” Natasha asked with a gasp.

“All 206!”

They reached the porch of Steve’s cabin as Nat blinked. “James,” she said, “she’s a_ child. _Morgan, if you’re fighting an opponent your own age, there could be up to _270_ bones in their body – children’s bones are still fusing together. We’ll have to have a talk about how to use that to your advantage. But, if James will let me,” she added, brushing Morgan’s hair away from her face, “I thought we could learn a little about knives, today.”

*

Bucky taught Morgan how to knit on an afternoon when both her parents were out and she was staying over at his. Steve laughed so loud it made the house shake as Bucky tried to use a Miss Piggy puppet with his Kermit the frog impression to teach her.

(The scarf she spent the next four days making wasn’t very long, but Mommy said she loved it.)

*

Morgan was getting better at eavesdropping.

She hadn’t been sure, but she caught a conversation maybe she shouldn’t have, and if Bucky or Natasha had known she was there, they surely would’ve fallen silent. But:

“So, teaching Morgan,” Natasha said in Bucky’s kitchen, while Morgan listened through the open window to the porch, “that was your idea, right?” He must’ve nodded, because she continued, “Thought so. I expect you don’t have much going on right now, huh?”

“Well, we’re watching a lot of _Antiques Roadshow _right now, because Steve likes the nostalgia—”

“Uh huh.”

“And I’m still trying to get in contact with _Wipeout_, because Sam thinks he could get a better time than me—”

“You’re literally a super soldier.”

“My point exactly. So—no, I don’t. But I like teaching her, it’s… weirdly cathartic.”

Morgan frowned. She didn’t know what the word _cathartic _meant, but Bucky’s voice sounded soft when he said it, so she didn’t think it was anything bad.

“I get it,” Natasha replied, and her voice had turned quiet too. Morgan wondered if she should keep listening, but Natasha had once told her that when people got quiet, they usually said important things, and if they said something important she didn’t want to miss it.

“You do?” Bucky asked.

“Of course I do. I remember how it used to be. Teaching little girls how to fight is something you’ve done a hundred times. Only—”

“It used to be different,” Bucky interrupted. “I used to be harsher. I used to teach them to kill right off the bat. It didn’t matter if they _liked_ being there—”

“You were a different person.”

“… So were you.”

Morgan didn’t really understand what they were saying but understanding the information and remembering it were two different things. Natasha said that sometimes understanding can come later on – it was just important to piece it together when the time came.

“I think this is good for you,” Natasha said after a moment.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I think it’s a nice little _fuck you _to who they forced you be.”

Morgan knew what the words _fuck you _meant, and she also knew that if she repeated them, she would lose dessert for a week. She was about to creep around to the porch steps, like she hadn’t been there at all, when someone cleared their throat.

Caught and wide-eyed, her head snapped to the left, where Steve was watching her with a single raised eyebrow.

“What are you doing out here?”

“I’m… bird watching.”

“You’re bird watching.”

Morgan nodded. “Uh huh. See there?” she pointed at the closest bird. “That’s a pigeon.”

Steve followed her finger, still unimpressed. “That’s a blackbird.”

“Oh,” she said. “Huh. See, that’s why I’m doing it. Practising. I’m not very good.”

“Is that right?”

He stepped over and hefted her up into his arms. “Aren’t you supposed to be back home by now? We watched you go.”

Morgan panicked for a moment and hoped Steve didn’t catch it. “There were… pigeons. Or, blackbirds, maybe. I don’t know the difference. Lots of them! They scared me so I came back here. Daddy says I should always find one of you when I’m scared.”

Steve nodded, stepping down the porch steps and onto the grass. “Absolutely you should. But you didn’t find one of us, you just stood on the porch. Let’s take you home, huh?”

Morgan was pretty sure he didn’t believe her, but he didn’t say otherwise and carried her all the way back home. The whole time, she wondered about the other little girls and where they were now.

*

It was Morgan’s second knife lesson with Natasha when her Daddy walked in.

“What the _fuck_ is my baby doing with a knife?”

His shout was loud enough that Morgan jumped, and had to hold onto the hilt of her knife extra tight to make sure she didn’t drop it or cut herself. She kept going though, because Natasha was still moving, not looking at the door, and Bucky always said to never turn her back on her opponent.

“She’s learning,” Bucky said, somewhere behind her.

Morgan saw the opening; Bucky had been teaching her to spot them – where Natasha’s arms weren’t covering, where if she was fast enough, she could hit. She darted the knife forward, aiming not to touch her but to get close enough to prove that she could – Morgan winced when she saw the scratch, on Natasha’s side, between the top of her sweats and the bottom of her shirt but—

“You got me,” Natasha gasped, clutching her side dramatically with wide eyes. She whispered it out, “You got me,” as she collapsed to the floor.

Morgan giggled as Natasha dramatically died and spun around to look at Bucky’s wide grin as he clapped. “She didn’t even react like that when I shot her, Morg! You’re so good at this! Great job at stabbing!”

Daddy, on the other hand, looked horrified. “You gave my _baby _a _knife._”

“And she’s very good with it,” Natasha said, sitting up. She blinked. “Oh, look at that. I came back to life. Must’ve been a mix up with the soul stone.” Morgan didn’t get the reference, but Bucky scoffed, and Daddy’s horror turned into a mild death glare.

“Knife safety,” Bucky reminded her, and Morgan nodded, walking carefully with her knife over to the side of the room, where she placed it in the padded box Natasha had brought. Then she jumped up and ran over to Daddy.

“Daddy! Did you see that?! I got Nat! I saw the opening and I stabbed her!”

“… Uh huh. You… you sure did, baby. You sure did.”

“Nat says when Nebula comes to visit we can train with her, too! Apparently human ananatomy—”

“Anatomy,” Nat corrected.

“Atanomy—”

“Close enough.”

“—is really different from alien atana—_bodies _so she wants to learn, too! Plus, apparently, she’s a super cool warrior, right Nat?”

“Right.”

“So she’ll be able to teach me stuff, too! Maybe she’ll let me use her cool laser guns—”

“Alright,” Daddy interrupted, picking Morgan up and swinging her into his arms. “You’ve corrupted my daughter. Good job, Barnes. Romanoff. She’s officially going to murder the next jerk in her class that pulls on her braid—”

“No, I _won’t,_” Morgan huffed. “I’ll just punch him. He shouldn’t be touching my braid.” She held up her fist, thumb out, fist straight, no bend at the wrist, and Bucky nodded appreciatively. He held up his flesh fist and she knocked hers against his with a grin.

“Stop that,” Daddy said to Bucky. “My only child’s going to end up in jail for murder—”

“No I _won’t_, Sammy taught me how to do CPR and slow bleeding last week!”

Daddy blinked at her. “_Sammy?_ You mean the _bird boy?_”

“To be fair,” Natasha said, her smile small, “he is a pararescue. First aid’s kind of his thing_._”

Bucky, on the other hand, was full-on grinning at her. “Yeah, and besides, she knows where to hit and where not to, don’t you, kiddo? I taught her where _all_ the vital organs are, and—”

“No. Nope. Nada. Not doing this.” Daddy spun and turned towards the stairs, carrying Morgan with him. “Terrible day. Just awful. You’re all the worst. My baby is _six._ You’re all bad influences on her. I cannot _believe—”_

*

Morgan peered up at Pepper as she chopped up the cucumber for lunch.

“Mommy,” she said, kicking her footstool over so she could be tall enough for the counter. “You’re holding the knife wrong.”

Mommy frowned, her brow creasing. “I’m not sure I am, sweetie.”

“Put it down, I’ll show you.” Morgan took the knife and held it like Nat had taught her. “See, you get a way better angle this way—”

“Maybe for cutting _people, _Morgan,” Mommy said suddenly, taking the knife back – she didn’t even wait for Morgan to put it down, like Bucky and Nat taught her to do. “Not cutting_ cucumber._”

*

Nebula was dropped off from her spaceship, and after the crew had lunch (and Morgan showed Thor all the cool new toys she acquired since she last saw him) the ship was gone, and Nebula was still there, dumping her bag onto a spare bed in Steve and Bucky’s house.

“I think we’re doing an anatomy lesson today,” Bucky said, when Nebula asked what he would be teaching Morgan. “You know, breaking bones, that sort of thing. Apparently, we have different skeletal structures than… aliens, so—”

“Can you do it with Miss Piggy?” Morgan asked, trailing after them.

Bucky paused, looking down at her. “You want it with Miss Piggy?”

“Bone lessons are _hard_,” she moaned. “Miss Piggy makes it easier to concentrate.”

Bucky sighed through his nose, but Morgan knew as well as anyone else in this house that Bucky had just about _never_ said no to her. “I really wanted to look cool in front of the cool cyborg alien, Morg.”

Nebula blinked twice. “I have dealt with enough Terrans in the past decade that I see you all as primitive and ridiculous. You stood no chance at looking cool in front of me.”

“Oh great. You hear that, Morgan? I stood no chance at impressing the cool cyborg alien. There’s no point in trying to impress her. I have a cool metal arm. She has a cool metal arm. I’m the most prolific assassin of the twentieth century. She’s a very scary woman who no doubt did very scary things. And _still. _No chance. None at all. I’ll get Miss Piggy.”

“He’s an assassin?” Nebula asked after Bucky disappeared upstairs.

“He used to be,” Morgan replied, though she was fairly sure she wasn’t supposed to know about that part of his life.

“Oh.”

Ten minutes later, the three of them sat cross-legged on the floor of the gym, while Bucky used a few printed out diagrams of the human body (both adult and child, at Natasha’s request) and a Miss Piggy puppet to teach them about dislocating and breaking bones. His Kermit impression was getting much better.

*

Morgan was getting so good at spying that no one caught her when she crept along the landing and pressed herself flat against the floor to peer through the topmost bars of the staircase. Down below, Steve and Bucky were talking so quietly that she couldn’t hear them. She knew they were waiting for her; she’d gone to the bathroom but had slipped the door open silently and not yet flushed the toilet so it sounded like she was still in there, and that’s why, she figured, they had no idea she was there.

So when she saw them kiss, her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, and she carefully climbed back onto her feet, and flushed the toilet, washed her hands, and rushed down the stairs like she hadn’t seen anything at all.

*

Morgan didn’t know what to make of the kissing, because the only people she knew who kissed were her Mommy and Daddy and people on the television. They were always in love, those people, and though Morgan didn’t know if Steve and Bucky were in love, she also didn’t know what they were supposed to be. Daddy was always making jokes about those two, and he and Mommy had once had a double date with them (at least, that’s what Morgan had overheard them calling the late night dinner the four of them shared), but Steve called Bucky his best friend (“in the whole wide world, and even on other planets, too”) and she’d even read _The Star-Spangled Man, _the first book in the _Captain America Adventures _trilogy, that said that the two of them were friends _from playground to battlefield._

Investigating was probably part of being a spy, but she didn’t really know where to start. She could watch them a little more, but Morgan didn’t like the idea of constantly spying on them when they didn’t know she was there. She could ask Mommy, but if they hadn’t told her before if Steve and Bucky were married, she might not tell her now. Or she could—

“Morgan, are you paying attention?” Daddy snapped his metal fingers in front of her face, and she blinked.

“Uh huh.”

“So what did I say?”

Morgan hesitated, and sunk into her chair a little. “You said _Morgan, are you paying attention._”

Daddy sighed, rolling his eyes. “I _said_ that we were going to have a talk about where you can and cannot use knives and practise what Bucky and Nat are teaching you, especially after you tried to stab the fridge this morning.”

“I was practising.”

“We know, honey,” Mommy said, “and it’s great that you’re having so much fun. But I’m _definite _Bucky told you that you couldn’t even touch knives if you’re not supervised.”

Morgan pouted and sunk further into her seat. “Maybe.”

“And you weren’t supervised, Morgan. So we want to be really, really clear: you don’t touch knives without an adult supervising, and you don’t _practise _fighting, with knives or without, unless you’re in the gym with an Avenger watching out for you, okay?”

Morgan huffed but agreed. She just wanted to impress everyone in their next lesson with how much she remembered but looking over at the scratch marks on the fridge, Morgan guessed it was probably better to listen to Mommy this time.

*

Peter freaked out, more than a little, when he went to find Morgan and she was throwing knives at a target in the gym.

“She’s _six_,” he insisted, as if Daddy hadn’t said the exact same thing.

Natasha shrugged. “I started younger than she did.”

“You’re an anomaly,” Peter retorted. “You don’t count.”

She cocked a single eyebrow at him, and Peter stuttered, “N-not that you don’t _count, _you do, of course. You’re an Avenger. I just mean that M-Morgan, she isn’t, she probably shouldn’t—”

“Kid,” Bucky said, holding back a laugh. “You wanna learn how to throw some knives?”

Peter froze for a moment before shrugging. “Yeah, okay.” He crossed the mats to where Morgan was aiming a knife at the target. When she threw it, it hit the edge of board but stuck firm. “God, I’m gonna get shown up by a six-year-old. How long has she been learning this?”

“Knife throwing?” Natasha mused. “About two weeks. Actually—how long are you staying?”

“All week,” Peter replied, and Morgan grinned up at him. She was _very _excited for him to be staying and had planned out a lot of activities for the two of them, starting with an action figure re-enactment of the Battle of New York, and then a tea party, which Bucky, Steve and Natasha were also all formally invited to. “I’ve got the whole week off school.”

Natasha met Bucky’s eyes. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

He paused, looked from Peter, to Morgan, and back to Natasha. “Who’s gonna be a better teacher than he is,” he said.

“Precisely.”

“W-what’s going on right now?” Peter asked as Morgan aimed another knife for the target.

Natasha smiled. “We’ve been wanting to teach her some gymnastics.”

*

At the tea party, the five of them crowded around her outdoor table, and shared the tea and biscuits, and held out their pinkies when they took sips from their cups. Mommy had bought real biscuits, but the tea was imaginary, and she’d also helped Morgan put on her princess dress and tiara and searched her toy box for her feather boas and crowns and plastic jewellery for the others.

After, Peter taught her how to cartwheel, and the Natasha taught her how to safely hold a knife in her hand while she did it, so she could throw it when she was upright again.

Steve and Bucky ate all her biscuits and wore all her feather boas as they watched and cheered her on.

*

Morgan was sprawled on the mat in the gym after a session one Saturday. Bucky was on his back beside her, staring up at the ceiling, and Morgan wondered if she should just ask him. The _are Steve and Bucky married and/or in love _question had been burning a hole in her mind for a few weeks now, and she’d watched them extra carefully to see if she could figure it out without asking anyone, but—

They didn’t wear wedding rings, like Mommy and Daddy, though Bucky had a metal left arm so Morgan didn’t know if he’d wear the ring on the right hand instead, but either way, Bucky wore no rings at all. They did, however, both wear necklaces with little silver rectangles on them, and Morgan didn’t know if they wore matching necklaces like friendship bracelets or like wedding rings.

They didn’t kiss again (from what she saw), but they did sit on the sofa with their knees pressed together, or with Bucky’s feet on Steve’s lap, or with Steve’s feet on Bucky’s. And sometimes they cooked together, and they moved in sync around the kitchen, and sometimes they just sat in the same room quietly, without speaking.

Steve was often there when Bucky taught Morgan to knit, and he would either read a book, or watch quietly, but neither of them gave Morgan the answers she was looking for. She wasn’t even sure why she was so curious, either. Maybe it was because no one had told her, or maybe it was because Bucky was her _friend_, and friends were supposed to tell each other when they’re in love, or when they had secrets, and so she wondered if he really thought of her as a friend if he hadn’t told her.

“Stop thinking so loud,” Bucky said suddenly, interrupting her thoughts. “I can hear your cogs whirring.”

Morgan frowned and rolled onto her stomach, propping herself up to get a good look at him. Bucky raised an eyebrow as he met her eye, arms stretched out on either side, and shoulder-length hair pulled back in a knot, the same way he’d tied hers back half an hour before when it was getting in her eyes.

“What’s up?” he asked, and Morgan decided she might as well _ask._

“Are you in love with Steve?”

Bucky scoffed with a smile, before propping himself up on his elbows. “Yeah, Morgan. I am. Didn’t you know?”

Morgan shook her head. “No one told me. Are you married?”

“No, we’re not. Though sometimes I think we should be. Anything else?”

Morgan paused to think. _Bucky is in love with Steve._ “Is Steve in love with you?”

He cracked a grin, reaching out a hand to muss up her hair. “Man, I hope so. We’ve been together long enough.”

“How long?”

“Mm, since the 1940s, on and off, I guess. Didn’t really have a chance to figure it out until a few years ago, though. And then…”

“And then…?”

Bucky studied her for a moment, and his smile lessened, and the hand that he’d messed up her hair with moved back out to tuck the loose strands behind her ear. “And then I died for a while. And that was really hard for him.”

“Did you feel it?”

“Dying?” Morgan nodded. Bucky twisted his face. “I felt strange, and then I was gone. And then, just like that, I was back. Not too different from going in the ice to sleep. Is that what you’ve been wanting to ask about?”

Morgan nodded, then shook her head, then nodded again. “I wanted to ask about you and Steve. And about how I saw you kiss once when I was spying. And about the other girls you trained. And about why you want to go on _Wipeout_ even though the show ended years ago. And about the Snap and everyone disappearing, and—”

“Whoa, there,” Bucky said, sitting up. “That’s a lot of questions.” Morgan climbed up onto her knees. “Which one’s most important to you?”

She thought about it for a moment, before saying, “The other girls you trained,” and Bucky looked a little sad, like he’d thought that would be the case. Morgan had tried not to think about the things she didn’t understand, like the conversation Bucky and Natasha had shared in the kitchen, but sometimes, at night, she’d think about it and the word _cathartic, _which apparently meant _relief_ – like teaching Morgan was _relieving _for Bucky, compared to the girls he taught before, and how he said he’d been harsh with them, though he’d never been anything like that with her, and—

Morgan was filled with questions, always. She usually asked Mommy or Daddy for the answers, but sometimes you could only ask questions to specific people, and she’d been too nervous to ask Bucky about this one.

Bucky moved carefully to his feet, then held out the metal arm to pull Morgan to hers. “Steve bought some lemonade this morning,” he said, keeping his hand around hers as he led her to the stairs. “Why don’t we have some and I’ll tell you about the other girls?”

*

And the story she heard was sad, and it made Bucky even more so, but he promised that he was okay, and that things were much better than they used to be, and that no one would ever be inside his head again.

And Morgan knew he was telling the truth.

*

“Wrestle guild,” Maisie Redding whispered to her during math.

“Wrestle guild?”

“Like battle society but even secreter.”

Morgan peered at Maisie. Maisie had also done well in battle society – she was taller than everyone else in class and kicked harder, too. If Morgan wasn’t so scrappy, she might’ve lost when Maisie challenged her to a death match on the hopscotch court.

Now, Morgan pulled a face. “I don’t know…”

“You don’t know? But you love battle society. Wrestle guild’s the same thing.”

“I know, but I don’t wanna hurt anyone…”

“You won’t—”

“You got a bruise on your cheek for two weeks when Trina hit you.”

Maisie huffed. “But I was _fine._ Why don’t you wanna join?”

“Because I might hurt someone. My uncle Bucky teaches me fighting now, remember? And he said I’m not allowed to use it unless I’m in danger, because I could really hurt someone with it.”

Maisie narrowed her eyes at Morgan for a moment, before rolling them. “Okay, spoil sport. You don’t have to join then. Just keep it a secret, alright?”

Morgan nodded seriously. Of course she’d keep wrestle guild a secret. She knew how important secret societies were, even if she _really _wanted to see the pride on Bucky’s face when she told him that she said no. She figured she’d tell him after wrestle guild eventually got found out, instead.

*

It was the middle of the night when Morgan climbed out of bed and knelt on the toy box beneath her window. She’d woken up, and in the light from the hallway, she’d seen the clock pointing to a little past midnight. Then, a moment later, she’d heard voices.

From her window, she could see the lake, black and endless, and the shadowed trees that surrounded the house and carried on for as far as the eye could see. And to her left, just around the curve of the lake, was Steve and Bucky’s cabin, glowing yellow with light.

Carefully, Morgan pushed her window open and peered her head out into the night.

She’d heard voices, she was sure, and now she listened carefully as they drifted up to her window from the golden-lit porch below.

“What is it with you and _Wipeout?_” That was Daddy’s voice, Morgan would recognise it anywhere.

“It’s a fun show. People fall down a lot,” Uncle Bucky replied. Morgan wondered what he was doing over here, when he should’ve been in bed in his cabin, but she knew he and Steve did this sometimes – not always together, they would stay on the porch until way into the night just talking with Mommy and Daddy.

“And they got back to you?”

Bucky hummed. “They’re definitely interested, but only if it’s a whole _Avengers _special. I guess just having me beat regular people isn’t as entertaining as me going head to head with Thor.”

“Bet we could convince him to come back to Earth to film an episode,” Daddy replied.

It sounded like Bucky laughed, before: “It’s a dumb idea. But—”

“We all need something fun after the last hell decade we’ve been through.”

“Last hell century, more like,” Bucky corrected, quiet.

Morgan rested her chin on her hand, trying to imagine them on the porch. They probably had drinks in their hands, and maybe Daddy was wearing his old MIT sweater that he wore on chilly nights, and Bucky was probably barefoot, because he usually was these days.

“You should ask the others if they’d be interested,” Daddy said. “But you’ve got my vote.”

They fell quiet for a moment, and Morgan listened to a distant owl hooting, and kept a careful ear out for footsteps on the landing, though they never came.

“Even before… dying, I would never have guessed it’d be like this,” Bucky said at last.

“Like what?”

There was a pause. “Better than expected.”

When Morgan crept downstairs, she paused at the doorway to watch Daddy and Uncle Bucky drink from their glasses on the porch steps and laugh about something she hadn’t heard. Then Bucky turned his head and smiled.

“What are you doing down here?”

Daddy turned too, as Morgan replied, “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh, no?” Daddy asked. She shook her head. “What do you think you’ll need to get back to sleep?”

Morgan paused to think. “Juice pops?”

Daddy cracked a smile. “I’m not so sure…”

“I _definitely _need juice pops,” she replied, insistent, and then padded out across the porch, sitting on the step between them. “Absolutely sure.”

Daddy sighed, though he was happy. Morgan always liked it when Daddy was happy.

“Well, you heard the lady,” he said, pushing himself onto his feet. “I’ll be right back. Three juice pops, coming right up.”

Bucky watched with an amused smile, and when Daddy was gone, his metal hand stretched out and gently pushed the hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. He placed his cup out of the way and tilted his head at her.

“Well, I guess I won’t have to teach you about negotiation,” he said softly. “You’re a get-what-you-want kind of lady, huh?”

Morgan grinned. “I know about ex-tore-shun, too.”

“Of course you do.” Daddy reappeared with the juice pops and settled on Morgan’s other side, handing them out. “What do you want to learn tomorrow? I’ve got you all morning.”

“Peter said I should learn nun chucks.”

Daddy laughed. “Peter only said that because _he_ wants to learn about nun chucks.”

Morgan liked the idea of learning with Peter, and she peered up at Bucky, his hair loosely knotted and his face tired but bright. “Do you know anything about nun chucks?”

When he smiled, it made her smile too. “Oh, kiddo. I know a _lot_ about nun chucks.”

**Author's Note:**

> adsfghjkl thank you very much for reading!! i loved the idea so much and i've never written from morgan's perspective before (thanks to ciaconnaa for talking me through my initial struggles) and i've almost definitely developed a complex by calling pepper and tony 'mommy' and 'daddy' for seven thousand words,,, the things i do for art
> 
> talk to me in the comments! please! i need validation to survive


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